The Trump administration labeled one of them the “worst of the worst.”
Another was arrested on his way to work at a South Side cheesesteak joint. A third was under investigation for child exploitation crimes. And when a fourth appeared in federal court, a judge was told, “Chicago is all he knows.”
They’re among a handful of defendants arrested for illegally re-entering the United States and brought to the Dirksen Federal Courthouse since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.
While they represent a small sliver of prosecutions at the downtown building — better known for cases involving corruption, violent street gangs and terrorism — there has been an uptick in these immigration-related cases since January, when Trump returned to the White House.
They open a rare window into an area of the criminal justice system that’s difficult for the public to access despite its prominence in American politics.
The records contain pleas for people who grew up in this country but understand that their “life here is over.”
They also reveal accusations of six-figure sums of cash and cocaine discovered because of a traffic stop and how federal agents had to break a car window to arrest an uncooperative defendant.
No Dirksen prosecution has been publicly linked yet to Operation Midway Blitz, the campaign launched this past week by the Trump administration. It’s meant to target people taking illegal advantage of the so-called sanctuary policies of Chicago and Illinois.
The unlawful re-entry cases appearing at Dirksen instead have long been bread-and-butter efforts for federal prosecutors. They’re largely filed against people either because of their backgrounds or the significance of the crime that led to their encounter with law enforcement.
Depending on the circumstances, the cases can result in a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
At least one has been linked to Operation Take Back America, another Trump administration effort to enforce immigration laws. The year’s earliest arrests took place late in January, around the time of a public show of force in Chicago by border czar Tom Homan as well as then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove and TV personality Dr. Phil McGraw.
Steven Hunter, a lawyer who represented one of these defendants, said he and his colleagues have noticed the recent uptick in cases but “could only speculate” about why it’s occurring.
“But the speculation would involve the current administration in Washington and the overhaul of the Justice Department and their priorities,” he said.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.
Cases on the rise
The Chicago Sun-Times identified 23 of these cases filed in the Northern District of Illinois through the end of July. That’s up from 13 at the same point in 2024. It’s still a sharp dropoff from 2019, when the filing of such cases peaked within the past decade.
In 2019, 79 such cases were filed, according to statistics kept by the federal courts. That was during Trump’s first term.
For context, there are hundreds of federal criminal cases filed in the district every year.
The cases reviewed by the Sun-Times involved defendants generally charged with illegally re-entering the United States after having been removed from the country at least once before.
A little more than half of the cases are still pending. A few others ended with a motion from prosecutors to dismiss the case. That’s because immigration authorities already had managed to remove the defendant from the country.
One defendant was sentenced in May to essentially be “surrendered to a duly authorized official of the Homeland Security Department for a determination on the issue of deportability.”
Half of the cases were filed after the April 7 installation of Andrew Boutros as Chicago’s top federal prosecutor. Boutros was originally named to the position on an interim basis by Attorney General Pam Bondi. He’s since been appointed on a permanent basis by the judges of the U.S. District Court.
In April, during his first interview with reporters, Boutros cited concerns about illegal immigration and the way it “impacts” other areas of priority, including drug cartels, human-trafficking and child exploitation.
No ‘claim’ to U.S.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement used its website to slap the “worst of the worst” label on Margarito Carmona Ramos of Mexico. He was arrested and charged with illegal re-entry in June.
Hunter, who represented him, calls the ICE rhetoric about his client “pretty ridiculous.”
Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Manish Shah to dismiss the case against Carmona Ramos in August, noting that he’d been “removed from the country” on Aug. 20 “as a result of deportation proceedings.”
The criminal complaint filed against him said he had “no claim to United States citizenship or lawful residence.” He was convicted in Cook County circuit court of attempted murder and aggravated assault in 1988 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for the attempted murder, it said.
He was removed from the United States in 1996 and again in 2022 before ICE arrested him on June 27, according to the complaint.
In a July defense filing, Hunter wrote that Carmona Ramos had been caring “for his critically ill father” since 2022, until the father’s death.
Also, he wrote that Carmona Ramos had gotten married and raised three children “to be successful adults” after his earlier conviction, earning praise from his manager at work for his “integrity” and “professionalism.”
Hunter acknowledged the “serious felony” on Carmona Ramos’ record but pointed out that it’s “decades and decades old.”
“He basically worked a job, got married, raised three kids, which is what you want everybody to do,” Hunter said.
The Justice Department also touted the May arrest of Salvador Guerrero Lopez of Mexico, who was under investigation for child exploitation and human smuggling crimes, according to a complaint. It said Guerrero enticed a minor female to send him sexually explicit images of herself.
He had twice been convicted for crimes involving sexual abuse of minors in addition to a drug crime, according to the complaint.
Guerrero was deported in 2004, 2011 and 2021, it said. He was arrested on May 26 in far northwest suburban Island Lake, and the resulting federal prosecution against him is still pending. The Justice Department tied the case to Operation Take Back America.
In a separate case, involving a Mexican citizen named Luis Alejandro Franco Rodriguez, prosecutors say law enforcement conducted a traffic stop and discovered $211,891 cash in a white box kept in a white garbage bag.
Authorities said another $3,648 was later found in his home — along with roughly a kilogram of cocaine.
In a sentencing memo, defense attorney Robert Rascia acknowledged that “the end result here, no matter what sentence is imposed, is the defendant’s removal to Mexico.”
U.S. District Judge April Perry gave him time served but ordered him surrendered to Homeland Security.
In another prosecution, Edgar San Juan-Piedra of Mexico was on his way to work when he was arrested, his lawyer told a judge.
“That’s why he’s wearing this Tony’s Philly cheesesteak shirt and has a towel in his back because he was on his way to work as a cook where he has worked for the last several years,” attorney Seema Ahmad explained, according to a court transcript.
A prosecutor later pointed out that the man “did not voluntarily come out of the car despite the officers identifying themselves as ICE.
“They were forced to break a window and forcibly remove him … to place him in detention,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Chester Choi said.
San Juan-Piedra previously had been convicted of a drug conspiracy and sentenced to 54 months in federal prison and removed from the United States in 2020, according to the complaint filed against him.
‘His life here is over’
Kenneth Acosta-Martinez of Mexico was removed from the United States in 2002 and 2022. He faced a 2021 federal gun charge in Indiana following a traffic stop in Indianapolis. A stolen semiautomatic handgun and $9,000 in cash was allegedly discovered in his car.
Acosta-Martinez initially said he had cash for a down payment on a home in South Carolina, court records show. But federal authorities say he also admitted that “some” of the cash had been paid to him for helping smuggle someone into the United States two years earlier.
In a memo filed by defense attorney Daniel Hesler this past week, Hesler wrote that he’d spoken with his client about “one particular topic in every meeting we have had.” That’s “the fact that Mr. Acosta cannot return to the United States again.”
“Despite the fact that he has been in this country since he was six, he understands that his life here is over, and that he cannot come back,” Hesler wrote.
Jefry Estrada-Pastrana of Honduras was charged in January following a Chicago traffic arrest. Authorities said he had been ordered removed from the United States in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016.
Defense attorney Kathleen Leon argued during a hearing that “he essentially has no ties to his birth country” and that “Chicago is all he knows.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Heather McShain agreed to his release pending trial in January but said she was “fully aware that there is an ICE detainer in place here.” Leon predicted then that Estrada-Pastrana “will be detained by ICE, and his family will not be able to say goodbye.”
So, near the end of that hearing, Leon told the judge she’d promised a child that she would make a small request on behalf of Estrada-Pastrana’s family.
“I’m asking the court to allow them to hug him goodbye now,” Leon said, according to a transcript.
McShain told the attorney she was “sympathetic.” But she refused.
Estrada-Pastrana didn’t wind up in ICE custody until May, court records show.
The case has since been dismissed.
“Defendant has been deported to Honduras,” a judge wrote.